This research aims to call attention to the astonishing growth of the Japanese e-commerce market, which has grown to become the 4th biggest in the world in 2014, and propose policy suggestions for increasing Korea’s e-commerce exports to Japan.
   To achieve this end, this research analyzes Japan’s e-commerce market and the statistical data on Korea’s e-commerce exports to Japan, and conducts a survey of Korean companies exporting to Japan through e-commerce platforms.
   The findings of the research are as follow: First, the Japanese e-commerce market, presently the 4th largest in the world, is expected to continue to grow in the future. Particular growth is expected in the digital market, which includes online games, e-publishing, etc.
   Second, one of the reasons Korea’s e-commerce exports in 2015 increased more than threefold compared to the year before is because the Korean government started to include goods for list-clearance in its export statistics; since list-clearance does not require information such as company size or item name, the value of trade classified under “others” or “no sorting” has increased significantly.
   Third, according to export statistics, Korean e-commerce exports to Japan depend heavily on items that belong to the two fields of fashion and beauty (comprising 61.6% of the total).
   Fourth, a survey of Korean companies exporting to Japan using the e-commerce platform shows that the companies find factors such as promotion & marketing, complicated export declaration process, etc. as the most serious bottlenecks in e-commerce exports.
   Fifth, the survey results revealed that there is a need for the Korean government to primarily focus on the three tasks of simplifying the export declaration process, supporting companies’ marketing and PR activity, and providing one-stop support through export promotion organizations.
   In terms of policy suggestions for boosting Korean e-commerce exports to Japan, this paper proposes three recommendations: creating a one-stop export system, diversifying export products, and simplifying the export declaration process.
   First, an e-commerce export support center could perform a general range of services?from acting as a substitutionary CSS (Customer Service System) for foreigners, translation services, to providing information on overseas marketing and customs clearance?and ultimately serve as a base camp for expanding exports.
   Second, export products should be more diverse. When it comes to diversifying export products, qualities such as “marketability” in the Japanese retail market need to be considered. Products that match the needs of Japan’s increasingly aging e-commerce population have emerged as a promising catalyst to increasing exports, and thus should also be considered. Diversifying sales channels (such as through supporting individual online shopping malls) will be necessary as a measure to diversify export products.
   Third and finally, it will be necessary to address the growing need to simplify the export declaration process. To achieve this end, the “Simplified Export Declaration System for E-Commerce,” introduced in July 2014 with the purpose of expanding e-commerce trade, should continue to be publicized. At the same time, further inquiries should be made to identify which parts of the export declaration process need to be simplified. Another issue to be addressed is the use of lump-sumvaluation, a problem created by the decision to include the list-clearance in export statistics. One possible solution could be to introduce an ICT- or AI-based technology that, upon entering the company name and the item name, automatically adds in the corresponding company size and the HS code.